Stephen King vs. Stephanie Meyer

I'm a big fan of Stephen King and earlier in the week I found a few articles about his comments on Stephanie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, during an interview with USA Today. He draws similarities between her and J.K. Rowlings, both of whom are very popular and whose books target a younger demographic, but quickly separates the two, citing "the real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good." He later goes onto comment:

...in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it’s very clear that she’s writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because they’re not overtly sexual. A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that’s a shorthand for all the feelings that they’re not ready to deal with yet.

I love Stephen King for this - he's blunt and precise in his criticism. This whole interview was posted on a USA Today blog way back on February 2nd, so there's been ample time for die hard Twilight fans to throw their ill-crafted and unsound arguments at Stephen King's interview.

I won't go into great detail about them, but here's one that reflects the backbone of the Meyer Camp's argument:

Mr. King,
I think its time to harvest those sour grapes. You shouldn't feel threatened that a female author is outselling you by leaps and bounds. You should praise her for getting people into a book store to buy something besides $4 coffee.*

Meyer supporters often mistake King's criticisms for jealously, when in fact he's merely commenting on her writing ability. He has a degree in English, was a writing teacher, has published a writing guide called On Writing (ironically enough), and is a generally respected author in the writing community. I would say he is qualified enough to give, at the very least, a decent analysis of his peer's writing. Lastly, I'd point out that King has sold somewhere from 300 million to 350 million books in his career, while Stephanie Meyer has sold a meager, in comparison, 40 million books. King's comments were not made out of jealously at all, he was simply making remarks on the quality of her writing.


Go over to the original USA Today blog and read some of the comments - some of them are hilarious.